


Faded For All You Are

by angelwriter



Category: British Actor RPF, Good Omens (TV) RPF
Genre: Desire, Established Relationship, Forbidden Love, Friends to Lovers, Gay Panic, Gay Rights, Implied Sexual Content, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:15:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26813503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelwriter/pseuds/angelwriter
Summary: I have no interest in writing the truth about my life! - David Tennant[BBC Radio 4 Richard Wilson Autobiography Episode of Believe it! Repeated: 02.10.2020 11:30 BST]Because there is truth to be revealed. . .
Relationships: Michael Sheen/David Tennant
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35





	Faded For All You Are

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Richard Wilson's Audio Drama Believe It! S4 EP 1: Scotland 
> 
> Title comes from You're All I Want - Cigarettes After Sex 
> 
> (massive thanks to David Tennant for recommending this exquisite band) 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Don't like, don't read.

Why did I decide to record this autobiography episode? I think, sitting beside Peter Capaldi, Ian Mckellen (who Richard Wilson calls Head Gay) and Richard himself. I get roped into the strangest questions that I'm meant play along with. Most of it is scripted and I try my best to sound natural. Of course this is the first time receiving the script, which is just a piece of paper with notes and a few responses to Richard's questions. I am a sort of relatively professional actor and I can improvise when needed. However I get completely thrown off guard when there is an obvious implication on something that no one has really brought up since my days in college. The word gay has never bothered me. I let people think what they think and it's like water off a ducks back, nobody really needs to know anything about my private life. No one speculates and if they do it is all conspiracy anyway. But this throws me because of everything that has been running through my head these past couple months. It has been eating at me. I told no one what was happening with me and that makes it all the more shocking. 

"No no no no no no no! I'm married!" I reply. 

As if marriage is a good reason why one would not be gay, forgetting of course that people could be bisexual or pansexual and queer and still be married to a woman, men who are married to women have been known to have male lovers.

"So was Oscar Wilde...." Richard grins and is very happy he came up with that come back. 

"Who's side are you on??" I retaliate. 

"The side of the truth...." 

Well, that shut me up. I scramble for purchase and try to think.

I swallow. "No! I'm not. Really."

I try not to let anyone see the blush creeping into my cheeks or the sweat gathering on my palms. 

"Sexuality is fluid, David, you know that," Peter Capaldi says, his voice as a matter of fact. 

I do. I really do.

"You know...you can be attracted to men and still be straight!" Ian says, smiling at me. "Many men can find other men attractive and have it not mean anything. Heck, you can kiss someone and not be gay. It's all what it means to you. Whether you are or aren't. People can sleep with people of the same sex and be completely heterosexual." 

"Well that's surprising," Peter laughs. "I don't see myself as gay though." 

"What makes me gay though?" I manage to ask. "What is it about me?" 

"It's the hair!" Peter remarks. 

"Yes," Richard agrees. "Such glossy hair." 

"My hair??" I furrow my brows at that. "Why would my hair....?" 

"It is glossy. Not like my hedge!" Peter scoffs at his own words at calling his hair a hedge. 

Richard takes this into his stride and says, "Actually I love your hair, Peter. Would love to run my hands through it...." 

"NO! Don't! " Peter nearly shouts in protest. 

"Well I can't have an imaginary love affair with one of you and not the other that wouldn't fair..." Richard moans. 

"You didn't say that a moment ago when you were all over me..." I say, feeling slightly defensive. 

"You can't help who you fall in love with," Ian speaks with the weight of someone who knew the depths of those words. 

My stomach flips uneasily. 

He carries on saying, "Desire cannot be hidden even from the darkest trenches you keep it in. The truth will always come out." 

Desire. 

There is always one person in the room that you want more than anything. There is always one person in the room that you want, that you hope for who can actually see you and this person rarely lays his eyes on you. This is the thing that haunts my every step. Loving is accepting, knowing, seeing. 

Do I dare name this want circling in my veins? Do I dare try to understand the twist in my belly and the ache in my bones that yearns for something I shouldn't? It is an age old story. Timeless. Endless. My body burns for thoughts of longing for him. I try not to speak it. Then again he always knows. He knows what I say when I look at him, he knows what I think when I lean into him slightly, he knows what I mean when I throw my head back and laugh without care because of his words. We both know it without having to say it. 

We meet in places where we can be alone, undisturbed by watchful judging eyes. We sneak into a bedroom. A hotel. We fall together onto the sheets. This is the easy part, being with him has always been the easy part. Effortlessly we reach out and touch. Lips pressed to lips. Skin against skin. We whisper into the dark all our secrets to each other, echoes of truths falling on tongues like a rapturous applause. Finally. Finally. There I can rest now. 

It is in the awkwardness of pulling on my coat again, buttoning up my shirt, straightening my tie, that I start to feel the weight of our actions bearing me down. I swallow. Don't say a thing. No goodbyes. I resist the urge to say thank you, I know he wouldn't appreciate it. He does this as much as for himself as for me. 

He loves me, I think. 

And that is what makes it worse. 

To be love alone? 

\-- a tragedy 

To love and be loved in return? 

\-- a disaster that threatens to unhinge the universe. 

Because when two lovers are kept apart is it not true that they disrupt everything? They fight. They push back. Force themselves against Fate to be together. 

Do I dare disturb the universe? T.S Eliot wrote. 

Here as my body moulds into his, every part of me stained and marked by him, my entire being surrendering to his love as he pull me even closer, never close enough. Here in this moment before the ending, I will never feel closer to him, my soul bleeds itself in him -- and here we release and I know that there will be a time when it will never happen again. There will be a time when we won't meet and we don't speak. We may talk, but never about this. We bury it under the rubble. We pretend. 

Sometimes I swear the whole world knows it. Sometimes I fear they can see the way we are together, as if they can tell by a mere look that he were once in me and I was once in him. 

All things are finite. 

Do I dare? 

My mind collapses like the ruins of an ancient city. I walk through these broken pieces and try to make sense of what I'm feeling. He stands there; waiting. It seems like I take so long to sweep everything together. I take a deep breath and speak. 

The words themselves are jumbled, juggled in the air and I can't catch them. I force myself to focus, to articulate what I'm trying to say. I wonder if he hears it right, if he understands. How do I make him understand? I don't even understand. 

It rushes out of me, a splurge of water in a cracked dam running in chaos and impossible to stop. Soon everything spills out. Blurred. Senseless. There it is. The truth is raw and unhinged. I cringe and hope he doesn't think I am weak. I despise how it falls on my lips, the ache resting on my tongue. Out in the open. 

I wish I never said it. 

He inhales sharply. He doesn't meet my eyes. We both knew that it would end. Was I too weak that I wanted to keep him? 

"We can't," is all he says. 

I fight back tears. I hate when I beg. 

"Please." 

"We've been good so far. No one caught us out yet. We've had a good run, let's not push it." 

I try to meet his eyes. He knows what I want to say, what I am saying. He shakes his head. 

"I will keep on. You know I won't stop. My mind is here. I'm always here. No matter how far away, I'm always somewhere here with you." 

"It's not easy for me either." He looks as broken as I feel. He's the one crying. 

I run and throw my arms around him. 

"Michael," I speak his name. 

"David," he speaks mine. 

I hold him and hold him. 

He kisses my neck. 

We are infinite, he seems to say. 

And I dare to believe that.


End file.
